Keeping the peace

Earlier this week, Respawn released the latest Live Balance Update for Apex Legends (aka the game was patched). No, this patch had nothing to do with the promised start of Season 1 and the first Battle Pass. However, there are a number of tweaks to the game’s meta that are worth exploring!

RESPAWN’S APPROACH TO PATCHING

First things first - in a recent Reddit post, Respawn clarified its philosophy on how it’s going to handle in-game adjustments. In summary, the devs are focused on making less, but more meaningful tweaks so players aren’t experiencing a “new game” every time they log in. Makes sense - players are investing a lot of time mastering the minutiae of the game, and every time a large update rolls out and evolves the meta, that process of mastering the game starts all over again. It’s a lot to ask of the community.

Understanding Respawn’s approach to game updates, let’s check out how the most recent update impacts the game, which are pulled directly from Respawn’s patch notes.

WEAPON ADJUSTMENTS

There wasn’t a ton that Respawn adjusted in terms of the weapon meta, but there a couple notable tweaks you should know about.

Wingman

• Rate of fire reduced from 3.1 to 2.6 shots per second.
• Skullpiercer Headshot damage multiplier reduced from 2.5 to 2.25
• Increased base hip fire spread and decreased the rate at which hip fire spread decays

Peacekeeper

• Shotgun Bolt rechamber rate has been reduced for the Peacekeeper only.
• Level 1 mitigation 10% to 7.5%
• Level 2 mitigation 20% to 13%
• Level 3 mitigation 25% to 16%

Wingman and Peacekeeper availability has been reduced in all zone tiers while the availability of all energy weapons and ammo has increased in all zone tiers.

The P2020 and Mozambique are staying the same

The short of the long of it is these weapons are designed to be lower on the “power curve” and are meant for use early in the match only. They are certainly better than engaging enemies using only melee, but if you’re going to survive long in the match, you’ll need to upgrade to something better. It’s how those weapons were designed to function, and Respawn sees no reason to change that.

UPDATES ON THE HITBOX “CONTROVERSY”

In summary, hit boxes for different characters are going to remain largely the same. The larger a Legend, the bigger his/her hitbox is going to be. Some slight adjustments are going to be made to hitboxes of the largest legends, those changes may come with some other tweaks to keep things balances (e.g., damage reductions). The one thing Respawn wants to make clear is that it intends to test the hell out of these sorts of changes before rolling them out to the game.

For now, the hitboxes for Caustic, Pathfinder and Gibraltar are being reduced.

Overall, we’re digging how Respawn is supporting the game, and more so how transparent they are being when communicating game updates to the community. What do you think? Is the latest update going to change how you play the game? Have no effect? Are there other changes you want to see ASAP? Let us know in the comments.